Improving Pelvic Tilt and Posture

A pelvis stuck in anterior pelvic tilt can cause the lower belly to pooch out, and

reversing that can help improve its appearance.

But in order to fix it, we can't just look at the position of the

pelvis itself.

You see, your posture is a two-way street.

You have influences coming from the bottom up, but also the top down.

If your pelvis is indeed forward causing some of that pooch belly, your body senses

this. In order to balance out your center of

gravity and not fall too far forward,

something else has to move back relative to that pelvis moving forward, and

this itself is an underrated influence on these pooch bellies.

People that have the pooch bellies typically have these rounded forward

shoulders

and a slouched, depressed front ribcage.

You can see the effect that that would have on the belly if I

were to have both the

anterior pelvic tilt and the rounded shoulders.

So a comprehensive solution entails, yes, getting the pelvis to rotate back, but

also allowing for the chest to open up and

decompress. Here's an exercise that effectively does both of those

things.

For this, lay on your back with your feet up on a

chair like this.

You want around a 90-degree angle with both your knees and your hips,

but you could

get a little further away if it's more comfortable.

Now, gently tilt your chin passively towards

the ceiling.

Take your hands in this position and then rest them on your forehead like

this.

This is going to allow you to have no tension in your arms,

but put your chest in a

nice open position like we're going for. Now, here's what you want to do.

Drag down into the chair with the back of your heels, and your hamstrings are going

to engage. Your pelvis is going to move into a posterior tilt,

your low back's

going to flatten out, and those hamstrings should engage.

It's very gentle, just a 2 out of 10.

Now we're going to add the breathing component to get more facilitation of

opening

of the chest. So we're going to just exhale through our

mouth very gently with an

open mouth and relaxed jaw like this

for about five to ten seconds. At the end of that,

you're going to feel your side

abs engage. That's good. Pause, hold your side abs very

gently as you inhale through your nose. Again, letting the air fall into you.

Should be a very slow, passive-like process.

If you're doing that right, you're going to feel your ribcage open up

in the front

even more, and should feel very nice with no neck

engagement.

And then repeat this process for two sets of 10 slow breaths.